Some of the confirmed tenants are scheduled to break ground as early as this summer, with completion dates of spring 2013.

Roers is in negotiations with several restaurants to come to the area, Nygard said. He wouldn’t specify which ones.

There is a market for the businesses, City Administrator Shawn Kessel said.

“It’s very exciting to know that our market forces are healthy enough to bring these companies in so that subsidies aren’t provided to entice them,” he said.

There is a fear that the bigger stores could take business away from the small ones, but just because they are there doesn’t mean people will shop there instead, said Ray Ann Kilen, Dickinson regional manager of North Dakota Small Business Development Center.

“Sometimes we are afraid of competition if we are a small business because we feel that when we get the Menards, what happens to the Bosch Lumbers or the Probuilds,” she said. “I remember when Super Walmart came and everyone was just in a tizzy, and yet the reality is those stores have done just fine.”

The stores are needed, said Troy Shank, owner of Outback Lumber Supply Co. in Dickinson. He said he has plenty of clientele and he is busy.